Battery Drain

[tsj5j]

Hi,

I've been noticing that my Hero has been gulping battery down VERY fast.
In general, the battery lasts 7-8 hrs, which is not acceptable (I'm out for 12+ hrs).

My usage is not heavy. Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS are rarely, if ever, on.
I do read some news and surf the web a little but only for 2-3 of those 7-8 hrs.

Is my battery life normal?
I've been reading people achieving 12+ hours with their stock battery...

 

[peterc10]

2 or 3 hours websurfing is very heavy on the battery, much more so than phone calls. One of the biggest drains is the screen and you having it on for 2 - 3 hours is going to drain the battery I guess

 

[tsj5j]

Seems very poor, much poorer than my iDevice that I use more frequently.

Today, after flashing the 2.1 ROM, it has gotten worse.
Battery's down to 40% in 6 hours, and Battery Usage shows 50% phone idle, 50% cell standby.
I've not even touched the phone since unplugging it 6 hours ago ;S

Is it possible I've a defective battery?

 

[peterc10]

If your battery is down to 40% after 6 hours of it being idle (no screen but switched on) then either you have some power hungry app(s) running in the background or the battery is defective.

At the moment my battery is showing 40%. It was last charged about 40 hours ago, and I have had it switched on the whole time with some light use, picking up emails in the background and occassionally switching the screen on.

 

[tsj5j]

I ran task killer and sync was off.

One thing I didn't do was charge it for 10-13 hours straight on first charge; I just unplugged it when the led turned green in ~4 hours (impatient...).
Could this have affected battery life?

 

[peterc10]

Nope - when the LED is green it is fully charged. No minimum charge times suggested in the manual.

 

[zippyioa]

At the moment my battery is showing 40%. It was last charged about 40 hours ago, and I have had it switched on the whole time with some light use, picking up emails in the background and occassionally switching the screen on.

That is amazing battery life, I never get more than 24 hours with similar use... what ROM and radio are you using Peter? Also, where are you and what network are you on?

 

[peterc10]

I am in UK on Orange, and have standard Orange ROM and Radio - not the latest one but the one they had before 2.73.61.5.

I have read lots of complaints about battery life, but I think mine is fine for a smartphone. I am a relatively light user of a phone - don't do lots of surfing or watching videos. A few phone calls, very few texts, checking emails and listening to some music is all I normally do with it. The other thing I do use it for is I always have the sat nav on while I am driving, but in that case it is plugged into my Brodit mount and charging from the car.

This latest spell may have been helped because I have not been out over those 40 hours - spent the weekend at home, which means that the Hero has been logged into wifi rather than trying to use mobile data. And not used it to make calls or texts or used the music player.

 

[jokies]

I notice keep Internet connection active take a lot of battery. Go to settings and turn it off and try to see whether the problem exist. It'll will take you a few seconds to re-establish the connecting whenever you need it... not so unbearable considering it'll save a lot of battery.

 

[tsj5j]

Same, I notice the mobile chip is using abnormal amounts of battery.

In the morning I watched a 40 minute episode of drama.
Battery dove from 100% to 65%.

To preserve battery life, I turned Airplane mode on.
When I was done with the episode, there was still 55% battery left!

I'm pretty shocked at the battery drain.

 

[shelnes]

I'm using one of the new 2.1 ROMs. They're known for having a bit of a battery-hunger. I solved it by installing the app Ultimatejuice from Market. it's a pay app, but it's worth it. It's also another app called juicedefender (free, less options) that I used before I bought the Ultimate. It also worked good! Now my battery lasts the whole day without any problem